


Lady Killer

by UnchartedCloud



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Honeypot, Rivaini James Bond, flirtation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 14:00:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6242206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnchartedCloud/pseuds/UnchartedCloud
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When interrogating Varric proves fruitless, the Inquisition turns its eye on Isabela instead. The story they receive in response is one of thievery, deception, sabotage, and seduction - one that takes them to Kirkwall with Aveline, Val Royeaux with Leliana, and Highever with Cassandra, all in pursuit of a document rumored to be useful to the missing Champion of Kirkwall. It may not all be true, but it sure makes for a damn good story.</p><p>Aka: How many tropes can I fit in to one semi-canon compliant fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nomette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nomette/gifts).



> "In my ideal world, Isabela bangs all of them between improbably cool fights like some kind of Rivani James Bond but feel free to write/draw whichever pairing interests you most."
> 
> So...this project got a little out of hand. But with a prompt like that, could you really blame me?
> 
> A few things before we get started. First, I've always headcanoned that Hawke and Isabela are very happily polyamorous post-DAII, so there's no need to worry about any cheating drama here. Second, you'll notice that I've played rather fast and loose with the timeline. I'm aware that most of these events probably wouldn't have been able to happen in quite this way, but I don't mind bending the timeline a bit. I hope you don't, either. Third, this is a full length fic that I ended up writing in the span of a month, mostly just for the giggles of having my favorite lady get some screen time with some of my other favorite ladies. With that in mind, please be gentle with any criticism!
> 
> Oh, and one last thing - thanks for reading. Enjoy!

“Stairs,” warns a voice in your ear, and you feel out the edge  of a stone floor with your toes. The smell of burning pitch is in your nose - from torches, you guess, given that the tell-tale rock of a ship is absent beneath your boots - and the faint sound of frivolity reaches your ears from far away. Through a few walls, you would guess, and then further, through a floor as you descend the stairs the gruff voice warned you of. Mailed fingers dig in to either of your biceps, and though the blindfold blocks all light you know that you’ve been taken underground. The air is _ripe_ with mildew.

The air chills several degrees, and that same voice warns you that the ground is flattening out. You reach the foot of the stairs, follow the hands’ pull several steps, then turn. After a few more feet the hands pull you to a halt, then shove you unceremoniously down; your ass connects with what must be the most uncomfortable chair you’ve ever met, and you grumble.

“If I wanted to be blindfolded and manhandled, I never would have left the ship,” you say, and shift beneath the heavy ropes that bind your wrists. They took your knives the second they got the chance, and you’re rather regretting your choice to give them up so easily.

The mailed hands leave you, and as if in response to your innuendo the blindfold is whisked from your face. You’re left blinking in the sudden light - it really was a _good_ blindfold, you would have to be sure to get the name of the shop they bought it from before you left - and hear, “Remove her restraints.”

The cold kiss of steel sends goosebumps up your skin as a dagger slithers beneath the ropes that tie your hands, and you have to fight back the impulse to snap the wrist that holds it and press it to its owner’s throat. Instead, as your eyes adjust to the firelight, you focus on the source of that all too familiar voice.

“Cassandra. I should have known ropes were your kink,” you say, your voice liquid gold despite the ache setting into your shoulders. “All that discipline and ordering around - it makes sense, really.”

You nearly shove the guard who’s taking too long to free your hands, but then the bonds drop from your wrists and your patience is rewarded with a disgusted scoff.

“ _Seeker Pentaghast_ ,” says the dark silhouette that stands across the long table from you. Cassandra steps into the glow of the candelabra then, and as you admire the angle of her cheekbone she nods to the guards. “Leave us.”

“You’re sending them _away?”_ you ask as you rub your wrists. “Spoilsport.”

“Let the record show,” says Cassandra, that carefully constructed look of control never falling from her face, “The interrogation of the pirate Isabela, captain--”

“ _Admiral_.”

“Of the _Siren’s Call--”_

“Two. Everyone forgets the--”

"Of the Eastern Seas--”

“ _Queen._ _Queen_ of the Eas--”

“ _Has. Commenced_.” Cassandra bites off the words, and the look of irritation on her face is so deliciously worth it. “The prisoner is being held pending the examiner’s decision regarding the charge of theft of Inquisition goods.”

“Ooooh, is that all?” You ask, a trim eyebrow rising over bronze eyes. “Come now, Seeker. We both know why I’m _really_ here.”

“Then you will not mind getting right to the point.” The prickle at the back of your neck materializes into a hooded figure who sidles from the shadows over your shoulder. She turns, and Leliana’s red hair and birdlike gaze greets you from beneath a sweep of purple fabric.

“On the contrary,” you quip, and your eyes sweep quickly down her chainmail-clad form as your tongue toys with the clasp of the stud in your lower lip. She has hardened since you last saw her, and you like it. “I’d prefer it.”

“It should be noted,” says a voice from the shadows, and as Cassandra turns to address it you catch a glimpse of spun gold and soft blue; in the light of the candle she has balanced on her board, the Antivan woman glows like a sunset on the ocean. “That she was captured off the coast of Cumberland, and the Crown of Nevarra will expect a proper investigation of the charges she was captured on. Otherwise, they may suspect that the Inquisition is up to more than we have let on, and will be reluctant to turn over prisoners to our custody in the future.”

“Because they have captured so many useful prisoners in the past,” Cassandra scoffs, and you arch an eyebrow. You have been many things to many people, but _useful_ is rarely a descriptor assigned to you. “Very well. We shall begin with investigating the charges of piracy.”

“Two weeks ago, a number of Inquisition goods were taken forcefully and unlawfully from the Antivan galley _Sunspeare_ ,” Leliana says. She stands on the side of the table opposite Cassandra, closer to you than the grumpy paladin, and folds her hands behind her back. “The crates, each marked by the Inquisition, were discovered aboard your ship, _Siren’s Call II_. Did you take them unlawfully from the _Sunspeare?_ ”

“Of course,” you say, and as Cassandra paces closer to you you see the Antivan woman behind her look up at you in surprise. “I’d beaten Nemo in cards a month before, and he owed me. _Someone_ had to pay that debt.”

“There we have it,” Cassandra says, and you hear the heels of her boots snap together as she turns to face the other women. “The Nevarran charges are answered. May we proceed now?”

The Antivan woman, still looking at you, nods slowly. Satisfied, Cassandra and Leliana turn to you in unison.

“Where is she?” the Seeker demands. Your eyebrow arches higher.

“Who?”

“You know who.”

“Your mother? Because last I saw her she rather energetically attempting to locate her underthings amidst my--”

“Her mother is dead,” says Leliana from the corner, and her matter-of-factness makes the Seeker’s brow twitch.

“Oh,” you say, and you manage to at least _sound_ contrite, “My apologies.”

“ _Hawke.”_ Cassandra places a plated fist on the table and leans over it towards you. If she so much as thinks about her mother, the thought does not appear in her steely glare. “Where. Is. Hawke?”

You blink at her, as though you haven’t been anticipating this question since you first saw the pierced eye on the sails pursuing you. “I have no idea.”

“ _Bullshit._ ” Cassandra jerks upright with the force of the curse, and stands glaring at you. “You were the last one to have seen her - even the dwarf admits that.” You frown and make a mental note to flay Varric later. Of all people, _he_ should understand the importance of discretion. “If you do not know where she is now, you must at least know where she was heading." 

You level a hard look at the Seeker. “I told you in my letters, and I will tell you again. For all the time I spent with Hawke, she didn’t let on what she was planning. If I knew where she was, I wouldn’t have had to spend all this time looking - so frankly, I have no idea what you want from me.”

“A recounting of the last six months would be nice,” says Leliana. She remains just on the edge of the firelight, her pretty face arranged so as to betray nothing but the mildest of curiosities. “Beginning with the last time you saw the Champion. And please, be as detailed as possible - even the smallest piece of information could provide a breakthrough.”

You look from one interrogator to the other, your expression a quintessential display of skepticism. When no punchline arrives you shift: wiggle your ass into a more comfortable position, rest your arm on the edge of the table, toss a dark curl over your shoulder. “Detailed?” you ask, and Leliana nods. You smirk, thinking of how many people Varric would shoot to be able to sit in on _this_ conversation. “Best take a seat then, sweetness. It’s about to be a long night.”

* * *

The sun rose as it always did on the seas: gradually, with the green of the water carried on into the sky, blazing slowly through the navy blue of night and into the soft amber of morning. You were oblivious to the glory of this gradation, however, waking only once the bright, reflected light of a risen sun poured in through the back windows of the captain’s cabin to assault your eyes. A headache, fierce as hellfire and twice as bright, had set in while you slept, and your mouth tasted of wet carpet. For what was certainly not the first time - and would absolutely _not_ be the last - you think that it might have been better to stop a drink or two earlier last night.

You shifted, and a half empty bottle of rum rolled off your side, across two inches of blanket, and onto the ground with a clatter. The sound roused the woman who was settled snug against your side, a small trickle of drool running onto your breast.

“Whassat?” Hawke muttered, and her head bobbed up blearily. Had she been awake - and sober, and in Kirkwall, and _not_ contentedly worn out after a nightlong marathon - you had little doubt the sound would have had her on her feet with daggers in hand, more than ready to tear the throat out of any who approached. As it were, you let your fingers drift lazily up her tensed back and slipped them into her hair.

“Just a bottle, you goose,” you said, and pressed the pads of your fingers into her scalp. She hummed incoherently and settled against you again as you kneaded a gentle pattern against her skin. “One that we probably shouldn’t’ve opened.”

“You heard the man,” she said against your breast. She at least had the consciousness to wipe at the spittle with the corner of her wrist. “It came all the way from Kirkwall! Hanged Man’s finest, just for us. We _had_ to drink it.”

“Hanged Man’s finest, my bronzed ass,” you grumbled, closing your eyes against the invading sun. You continued to press your fingers into Hawke’s skin, massaging her neck now with a technique you picked up in Antiva, last you were there. “One of these days, I’ll kill that dwarf with his own poison.”

“Come now, Isabela,” Hawke chided, her nose pressed against your skin. Her hand, now finished cleaning up her drool, dropped beneath the blankets and skirted along your ribcage. “You can’t be _all_ mad at him. That last bottle helped us keep our strength up.”

“Is that all it takes to power you, Hawke? Bottom-shelf booze from the bottom of Kirkwall’s barrel?” You smirked, your fingers trailing lazily down her neck to trace the ridge of her spine. “And here I’d feared that mansion sucked all the Lowtown out of you.”

“Mm,” she hummed, and you could feel her smile as she tipped her head between your breasts. She shifted, rolling until she was properly on top of you with her thigh between your legs. “I kept a _few_ of the things I learned there,” she breathed, and as her hand caught your breast her mouth kissed a path down your sternum--

* * *

“Enough!”

The Seeker’s face has pinked, and you know that it has nothing to do with the warmth in the room. You smirk with satisfaction as you realize that the Antivan woman has stopped writing and sits staring, fixated on your words. 

“We don't have time for such foolishness,” Cassandra goes on, and you become the very picture of innocence.

“Why Seeker,” you say, “I was only doing as I was told. _Detailed_ , remember?”

“Not _that_ kind of detail,” Cassandra growls, and you laugh. Before you can taunt her further, however, Leliana makes a smooth intervention.

“This is the day that Hawke left?” She asks, and you weigh the possibility of snapping at Cassandra anyway. Ultimately you turn and nod at Leliana instead.

“The crew docked us, I left to collect payment for our haul, came back half drunk to find her things gone and a letter on my bed.” You say it flippantly enough, and the Antivan woman looks surprised once again. You begin to think that whatever stories she’s heard before, they are not the sort you’re famous for.

“Your letter said as much.” 

“It did. And so again I must ask: _why_ am I here?”

Cassandra grunts from the other side of the table. “We don’t believe you.”

“You don’t say.”

“The woman you have loved for years disappears, and you do not send a _single_ person out searching for her?” She goes on. It isn’t a question she expects an answer to. “That seems unlikely.”

“Hawke said that where she was going, she needed to go on her own.” You take your arm back from the table and fold it and the other under your breasts. “I care about her, yes, but I also trust her. If she needs to leave, I’m not about to stop her.”

This answer doesn’t satisfy the Seeker, whose expression makes her look as though she’s just tasted something rather bitter. “That is not how love works.”

“Isn’t it?” You arch an eyebrow at her, and your voice turns sharp. “Should I have gone after her, when she asked me not to? Why? Because that’s how it works in your books?”

Cassandra’s face has grown stormy, and she opens her mouth to respond. Once again, Leliana’s voice cuts like a thrown knife through the air between you, and both of your attentions are caught.

“Isabela is not on trial for the way she conducts her relationships,” she says, and she’s looking at you before turning a warning look on Cassandra. You wouldn’t quite call what she has shown you _sympathy_ , but you know that she knows all about losing a lover to duty. You surprise yourself by being grateful for the solidarity. “We should move on. If not Hawke, then the missing document.”

That bitter thing is still on Cassandra’s tongue when she says, “Very well,” and paces away from you down the table. When she turns, her expression has returned to its usual stoic facade. “Your written testimony says that Hawke’s letter was not the only correspondence you had that day.”

A devious little smirk takes residence on your lips as you remember. “No,” you say, and your folded arms loosen. You tug at the top of your corset, rest your elbows on the arms of your chair and finish, “No it was not.”


	2. Aveline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part One.

“I wouldn’t have asked you here if I’d had any other choice.”

The docks smelled _exactly_ the way they did in your dreams. Day-old fish and stale piss, the reek of sweat and desperation so unique from the trading ports of Orlais or the spice warehouses of Antiva. And yet, somehow you’d found a way to actually miss Kirkwall.

The city _had_ changed, though. The rebellion had left its mark in a way the Qunari had not, the fear of magical enemies from within its walls inflicting far deeper scars on its inhabitants than the threat of aggressors from without. Its economy had flagged as nobles fled to ‘safer’ havens in the north or in Orlais, and as traders chose to find safer places to hold their stock. You couldn’t blame them, really; in those first few weeks after the Gallows fell, warehouses up and burned, mobs roamed the streets, the fearful citizens unable to escape either took to looting or defending their property with whatever arms they had. Even though the rebellion had long since spread to the other fifteen Circles, those who could afford to leave had yet to come back. The city was flagging, dying slowly in its own ruins, and there was only one person who was doing anything to keep it together.

Aveline looked much older than you remembered her being, even though it hadn’t been all that long since you last saw her. Sharp eyes stood haggard in a face lined with stress and exhaustion, and you could count a few grey hairs among the red that hadn’t been there before. She was forming a streak, that lucky girl, and for a moment you happily ignored her words in favor of contemplating the sight of silver strands twined between your fingers.

“Isabela, this is _serious_ ,” she snapped, and that put an end to your fantasizing. You sigh and leave off playing with the stud in your lip to answer her.

“Yes yes, Prince Holier-Than-Thou has recaptured his throne and is now using it as a battering ram against your front gates,” you recounted flippantly. As the words settled in, however, a slow smirk pulled your lips and you followed up, “Now _there’s_ a thought. What I wouldn’t give to see the two of you--”

“And to think,” she cut you off, closed her eyes and pressed the tips of her plated fingers against the bridge of her nose in that way she always did when you and Hawke were giving her a headache, “I’d hoped that actually _being_ with someone would have allowed you to mature.”

That pulled you up short - not because you were shamed, of course, you couldn’t rightly remember the last time you _felt_ shame - but because the very idea was so absurd that you couldn’t be certain you’d heard it correctly. “Wait. Wait,” you said, doing your best to choke down a laugh, “You’d hoped that Hawke. _Hawke_. Would tame _me?_ ”

Aveline dropped her hand and rolled her eyes in exasperation. “For Andraste’s--”

“ _Hawke?_ I’m sorry, but do you _remember_ Hawke? You have a better chance of _me_ taming _her_.”

“Isabela.”

“Oh, this is priceless. I’ll bet you even expected me to come back calling her _Mariam_ , like some good little house wi--”

“Oh forget it!” The guard captain threw her hands in the air and turned, muttering even as she walked away. “I don’t know what I expected. Why I ever thought I could count on you to help is beyond me!”

“Oh come on, big girl! I’m only teasing!” But Aveline didn’t stop, so you sighed and jogged after her. When you caught her mail-enclosed upper arm she angled a glare down at you, but you fell into step beside her anyway. “Look, there’s a reason why you put up with all of,” you gestured vaguely at yourself, “ _This_ for as long as you did. It’s because we work _well_ together. And I can promise I’m every bit as dangerous as I used to be, and I can tell you are too. Marriage hasn’t softened you, and what I have with Hawke…”

Aveline arched an eyebrow at you, but she was fighting a grin. “Because what you and Hawke have can be compared to marriage?”

You knocked her elbow with yours. “ _Hasn’t softened me_ ,” you said instead, but there was a little heat under your skin, and you couldn’t quite meet her eyes. No, what you had with Hawke _couldn’t_ be compared with marriage. But...what Aveline was suggesting wasn’t entirely wrong, either.

* * *

You followed her back to the Viscount’s Keep, where you were given a full briefing of the city’s current situation. The place was feeling more like a fortress than a seat of government that day, but given the armies currently massing outside its wall that was probably appropriate. The trip down the stairs to the guards’ barracks was an uncanny one, and you half expected to turn and find a Mabari sniffing at your heels, or to hear the pad of half-bare elven feet on the marble stairs, a smooth jibe aimed at the chinks in Aveline’s armor in the hopes of pulling a smile out of her. But Bear was not there, and neither was Merrill nor Hawke. You followed Aveline into her office with a peculiar feeling of loneliness at your back.

Donnic and the seneschal were waiting for you, and once Aveline joined them you guessed that you were standing among the highest ranking officials left in Kirkwall. It was pitiful.

The need for your expertise quickly became apparent as they outlined the immediate plan. Sebastian was in the process of arraying his forces for an attack at the city’s northernmost reaches, and had been establishing base camps accordingly, each with their own copy of updated rosters and unit movements. One of those base camps, positioned at the edge of one of the city sewer’s run-offs, would be accessible to a small, covert team. Given that Aveline’s guards weren’t exactly trained for infiltration, she’d sent word for outside help.

“So, to the sewers again?” You shot Aveline a grin, to which she rolled her eyes. “It’s just like old times.”

With little time to waste, you made your move that night. Aveline, dressed in non-descript armor confiscated from a recent capture so as not to make their affiliation _too_ obvious - “You know that wearing the one with an arrow hole in it doesn’t make you any more believable, right?” “Shut up, whore.” - followed you into the dank depths of Kirkwall’s underbelly. The odd smuggler still inhabited the sewer’s long and twisted corridors, but the greatest danger there had always been the organized lyrium trade and the Carta operatives who protected it. With no more Templars in Kirkwall, your way to the outside was practically clear. Your way into the camp, however, was slightly less so.

“Steady now, big girl.” You shot out a hand to catch Aveline’s shoulder and shoved her back down into the undergrowth. From where you were crouched, with her armor smudged with dirt and the innards of some poor would-be bandit to reduce its reflection of light, neither of you could be seen by the guard currently walking the perimeter of the camp. “We don’t want to blow out shot.”

“Blow our-- we won’t get a _better_ shot than this,” she protested. She was tense and coiled like a spring beneath your hand, your touch the only thing preventing her from jumping from the bushes and cutting the guard down. “He’s alone!”

“He’s not.”

Further along the perimeter, closer to you and out of the range of the camp’s torches, a second soldier was walking your way. Aveline’s eyes followed your finger when you pointed him out, and you could feel her practically go limp beside you. “Oh.”

“Mmhm.” Seconds ticked by, and your tongue played with your stud as you calculated. Then, “Stay here.”

You moved too quickly for her gauntleted fingers to catch you, and you snuck along the edge of the clearing to where the second guard was patrolling. A whistle, a grab, a scuffle, and a stab later, and Sebastian would find that he was down one soldier in the morning. You paused just long enough to fleece the man of any of his goods before you stood and signaled Aveline. With him down, you had a quick way through the perimeter.

From there, it was just a matter of sticking to the shadows until you reached the right tent. Aveline was no sneakthief, but she was surprisingly graceful for someone so large and heavily armored; with only a little direction from you, the two of you made it into the safety of the command tent in one piece.

“Oooh,” you said, standing from your second kill of the evening. This sentry, asleep at her post with a book open in her lap, hadn’t even heard you sneak up behind her. “ _The Lusty Antivan Maid_. She has a good taste in fiction. Or had, I suppose.”

“Isabela.”

“What? It’s a classic!”

“ _Isabela_.”

“Oh alright.” You rolled your eyes and turned your attention to the task at hand. Aveline was rifling through the papers on a desk at the other side of the tent, so you began to sort through a pile of your own. You had just given up your search there and moved on to a small lockbox when the guard captain spoke up again.

“Aha!” A glance over your shoulder found her lifting a ream of parchment victoriously in the air. “Got you! Now let’s--”

Aveline fell silent, frozen in place at the sound that reached both of your ears just then. A call from outside the tent, which sounded suspiciously as though it belonged to someone looking for the sentry currently wearing a red smile beside you. Aveline eyed the tent’s back flap.

“We should go,” she said quietly.

“Just a moment,” you answered. You'd pulled a lockpick from a hidden pocket in your corset and the box's lock was two ticks away from popping open, you could _feel_ it. Just given a little more time--

“Oi, Caroline! You in there?”

Aveline’s hand was on your shoulder. “ _We need to go!_ ”

“One. Second!” You snapped back - and then, just as predicted, the lock clicked. “Yes!”

Unfortunately, the tent flap opened just as the lid did.

“What the--Intruders!” Before either of you could do much of anything, the guard who had been calling ducked in, saw you, and darted out again. A warning bell was ringing almost immediately after.

“Shit,” you breathed.

“Damn you!” Aveline swore, not bothering to keep her voice down now. She drew her sword and charged through the back flap. You, meanwhile, took the contents of the box and stuffed them into the front of your shirt before following after her.

The two of you nearly made it to the edge of the clearing before the guards managed to halt your progress. As Aveline bared her teeth and raised her shield against the soldiers who barred the way forward, you turned to find that there were more hemming you in from the rear. You drew your daggers from their twin sheaths and put your back against Aveline’s.

“Think you still know how to do this?” You ask her over your shoulder, a smirk on your lips. You feel her glance toward you.

“Keep me between you and them,” she said, and as she shifted you could see her stance in your mind’s eye. You knew without looking how she hefted her shield, how she lifted her sword as though you yourself were the one doing it. “I’ll keep them distracted.”

“Yes you will.”

From the sash at your hip you retrieve a satchel of powder, raise your arm, and in one swift motion send it crashing to the ground. You disappeared in the puff of smoke that erupted from it, and for a moment it looked as though you’d left Aveline to die on her own. But then she smacked her sword against her shield and bellowed above the sound: “Well come on, you cowards!”

A number of the soldiers rose to the bait, and as they charged forward you reappeared behind them. One suffered a blade in her kidney, another found its twin buried in his spine. When you were spotted you kicked off the approaching guard and disappeared again. Two blades sunk into another heavily armored opponent, and then you reappeared behind one more. In the seconds it took for the first enemy to converge on Aveline, four were already leaking their lifeblood into the dirt.

That final backstab was the last of your surprise assault, however, as the soldiers wised up to your presence. You spent the rest of the fight with your back pressed to Aveline’s, moving into the openings she created when she caught attacks on her shield to strike at the exposed midsection of the enemy, promptly twisting behind her whenever a blade sought to return the damage you wrought. Trading back and forth, you managed to carve a path through the soldiers to the edge of the clearing - and then, you were gone.

* * *

“I can’t _believe_ you.”

It turned out that, once married, guards were no longer expected to live in the barracks at the Keep. As such, after having turned over all of your findings and being put through the most boring debriefing of your life, you had returned with Aveline to the small home she and Donnic shared at the edge of Hightown. No sooner had you both stripped out of your armor to tend to your cuts and bruises than Aveline launched her tirade, the temper that you knew had been boiling beneath the surface all the way back finally erupting.

“We had the schedules! We had the rosters! We had everything we came for, and yet you decided that we needed to stay!”

“I had a feeling,” you answered, and winced as you loosened your corset. You’d taken a pommel to the ribcage during the fight, and as the boning loosened the tender flesh expanded, causing a twinge. Aveline’s voice came from somewhere behind you, and you didn’t bother to turn and address her.

“A _feeling?”_

“I felt like there was something important in that box,” you answered with a shrug. Slowly you wiggled out of the corset so you could actually check the bruises. This was a task usually accomplished in the Hanged Man, when you and the others would converge after running one of Hawke’s smuggling jobs, or at her estate in Hightown after routing out corrupt Templars. To be doing it in Aveline’s family home was...odd, to say the least. “My feelings are rarely wrong. And they weren’t. Without the cipher I found there, it would take your people weeks to break the message’s code.”

“I don’t care what you _felt_.” Aveline’s voice felt closer, more aggressive. “We _knew_ that there was a guard coming in.”

Finally free of the corset, you set it on the table along with your knives before turning to look at Aveline. She was indeed closer, the last of her borrowed armor removed. Just a few paces from you, Aveline’s strong shoulders and toned arms were far more visible under her thin linen shirt than they usually were under all her plate armor; you allowed yourself only a moment to appreciate the sight.

“Oh calm down, will you?” you said. You undid the front of your shirt and slid a probing hand through the part to test the area around your ribs. “The guard would have seen us anyway. I cost us seconds, at worst.”

“They saw our _faces_ , Isabela!” Aveline raged back. Your instruction had apparently only served to spark her anger further. “Do you really think Sebastian will need even a _second_ to guess who we were? Who has his rosters? Your greediness cost us--”

“ _Greediness?_ ” You repeated, your own temper flaring. Your eyes narrowed and you took a step closer yourself. “ _Excuse_ me?”

“We didn’t know the plans were coded until we got back,” she answered, her voice low and dangerous. It didn’t faze you in the least. “You couldn’t have known we even _needed_ ciphers, let alone known they were in there!”

“I told you, I had a feeling!” You snapped. “I can’t believe this - you come crawling to me, begging--”

“ _Begging??_ ”

“--for my help, and then you turn around and _accuse_ me of--”

“Of being a thieving whore!”

That stopped you for a beat, but the fires it stoked put a sneer on your face. “You’re an arse.”

“Bitch.”

“Bastard!”

“ _Slattern!_ ”

“To the Void with this,” you growled then, and turned to step around the guard captain. “I don’t need to stand here and--”

“ _Oh no you don’t!_ I’m not finished with you!”

Aveline’s hand caught you in the collarbone as you moved and she shoved you bodily back against pillar you’d been about to pass, pinning you there with all the strength of her arm and weight of her body. You froze, not because you feared her, but because in that one motion the whole energy of the situation changed.

When she pushed you, your hands had closed around her wrist and forearm in order both to stay upright and to maintain some level of control over the situation. But occupied that way, they were no longer able to hold your shirt closed...and unlike Aveline, you did not bind your breasts when going into combat. Your shirt fell open, and the guard captain became very much aware that her hand, strong and calloused as it was, was pressed against your skin scant inches from your bare breasts. You knew she knew because you watched her eyes, you saw them dip low, saw the recognition on her face and - most _deliciously_ of all - you saw the color rise in her face. That traitorous Ferelden skin; it told you everything you needed to know about what was going on in that head of hers.

“What’s wrong, Captain?” You said, adjusting your voice to something much more sultry than the anger you’d offered before. You could tell that _does_ something for her, because the color in her face rose still further. Even though her eyes returned to yours, you knew she was straining not to look down again. “Like what you see?”

Aveline’s jaw worked for a moment before she managed to get out, “That won’t work on me, whore.”

“Won’t it?” You arched an eyebrow, and moved the hand locked around her forearm to draw the tips of your fingers up the inside of her arm. Her arm tensed as they moved, and you chuckled. “I think…” you drawled, “It already has." 

You thought you had her, then. There was something in the set of her jaw, and the way she was looking at your lips. It wasn’t _completely_ out of the blue; there had always been this tension between you, and just beneath the surface of the disdain she showed for you you _knew_ some part of her wanted you. And now...and now…

You were interrupted. The door swung open just as you were starting to push back against her hand, just as you were starting to close the distance, and her husband stepped in. Aveline took one look and panic took hold of her features.

“Donnic! I--”

But Donnic didn’t look angry when his eyes fell on the two of you, didn’t look the least bit distressed to have found his wife in so compromising a position with a pantless pirate queen. Instead he looked confused...and then, curious.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Aveline was saying, and you glanced between him and her. “You know the complications of the mission, and we were fighting, and--”

“Oh can it, big girl,” you interrupted. Stepping forward you grabbed her hand and pressed it again to your stomach, move it around to your hip. She blushed crimson, and you smirked up at her. You thought of all the times you and Hawke had teased her, had offered repeatedly to join her and Donnic in the bedroom just to see her turn this exact shade, and you made a mental note to tell her every detail once you see her again. “You know he’s more than welcome to join us.”

“I…” Donnic started, and though no words followed the look on his face told you plenty. He and Aveline exchanged a glance. Neither of them wanted to say no. So you didn’t let them.

“You blushing babes,” you chuckled, and stepped into Aveline’s space. As you bent your lips to her neck you said, “Now Donnic, get over here and kiss your wife.”

* * *

“This is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard.”

You angle your eyes at the Seeker, whose scoff and eyeroll has taken you out of your story. You raise an eyebrow at her. “And why’s that?” You ask. “Just because she was oblivious to Hawke’s advances does _not_ mean that woman is straight.” You let your eyes rake slowly over Cassandra’s armored form. In a lower voice you mutter, “I think I’d say the same about you.”

“This tells us nothing about the document,” Leliana sighs before Cassandra can get words out of her mouth. She leans her hip against the table now, her arms folded over her chest. “How you came to know where it was, or why you came after it in the first place.”

“The pages we stole from Sebastian contained more than just information on his troop movements,” you answer, folding your legs one over the other and sticking a thumb in the top of your corset to shift one of the stays. “It also mentioned something that fit the description of a document Hawke had written Merrill about. Merrill had come to Kirkwall to assist with a problem in the Alienage, and she told Aveline about it then. When Aveline heard that it was mentioned in the cipher, she told me.”

“So you botch a military operation, and get rewarded with valuable information anyway,” Cassandra snipes, and you narrow your eyes.

“I didn’t _botch_ anything,” you say. “It takes time to make changes to strategy on that large a scale. Time that could normally be bought by encoding your messages. With the ciphers I stole, it took the Kirkwall guard only half the time - which is why they were able to harry Sebastian’s soldiers long before _your_ people showed up.”

Cassandra’s response is cut off by the Antivan woman this time, who leans forward over her writing board to say, “Excuse me - but you say it is this captured information that led you to the document’s whereabouts?”

“That’s right,” you nod. “It’s because of that information and Hawke’s interest in the document that I set off for Val Royeaux immediately after." 

The woman and Leliana exchange a glance. “I think we will have to ensure our correspondents are more careful about who they disseminate information to,” the latter says, then turns to you. “So you find this information, and you decide to follow it to Val Royeaux. What happens then?”

“Then, sweetness,” you smirk, “I run into _you_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, Aveline. My knight in shining armor. I do wish you wouldn't slut-shame so much.
> 
> That's it for part one! Darn that Cassandra for interrupting a perfectly good story about a married couple's first threesome together. We'll have to get her out of the room next time.


	3. Leliana

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Two.

_The Inquisition_.

The very thought of the word put a bitter taste in your mouth. As if the way they’d treated Varric wasn’t enough to make you dislike them, they then had to go and pull _this_ \- this grandstanding in the middle of Thedas’ most pretentious city, declaring their unification of martial and religious might. All talk of divine right and Maker’s will and Andraste’s _whatever_ was all well and good with you, but put a sword in the hand of the speaker and it’s enough to make your skin crawl.

You know there are plenty of reasons to kill a man. That he believes the wrong thing should never be one of them.

Nevertheless, there you stood on that overlook watching as the herald - not _the_ Herald, just some paid loudmouth with a banner - delivered the announcement of the Inquisition’s formation over the heads of the rank-and-file Inquisition soldiers that stood in front of the platform. A curious crowd of masked nobles had gathered as they marched into the square, and now that crowd was a aquiver with conversation. You amused yourself by imagining them to be a flock of disgruntled birds, all ruffling their variously-colored feathers at the audacious news, and took a drink from the bottle in your hand.

“Bit much, innit?”

You’d been alone up until a moment ago, but you don’t betray any surprise as you turn toward the voice. It belonged, it turned out, to a young woman - an elf, dressed in red and carrying a bow on her back. Her accent didn’t match the blue-painted city around you, and you wondered idly why it’s always _Fereldans_ that find you.

“Bigwigs always like to talk that way, though. ‘Look at us! We are important and right and if you’re right you’ll be with us! And if you’re not we’ll stomp you in the face!’” The woman sidled up beside you and leaned against the bannister on the edge of the overlook. “Pretty stupid, yeah?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” you breezed, looking out over crowd again. You leaned one hip against the bannister and the rest of you against the wall behind you, angling yourself toward the woman as you crossed one leg over the other at the ankle and closed your free hand over the opposite wrist. “There’s something delightful in watching them make utter fools out of themselves.”

“Or making fools out of ‘em,” she tittered. “Like her?” She pointed to the purple-hooded woman standing just behind the herald on the stage. “Once, I fed her nugs brussel sprouts for a week straight. Stunk up the whole tower! Got so mad she had to send ‘em away to be looked after.”

Suddenly, you were all ears. “You know the Inquisition?”

“Sure I do,” she grinned. “Followed ‘em the whole way here.”

A lucky break, you thought. “I’m Isabela.”

“You’re _something_ , that’s for sure,” she answered, her eyes blatantly falling to your cleavage - which, to be fair, was looking _particularly_ good that day. But she pushed away from the bannister a moment later, and met your eyes with a smile. “I’m Sera." 

* * *

“Wait.” Leliana looks surprised. “ _Sera_ was there?”

“‘Course I was.”

You _all_ startle. Leliana and Cassandra both whip around, the Antivan woman jumps in her seat, and your eyes search the dark space at the far end of the room. Right by a second staircase, tucked in amongst a pile of old and precariously stacked boxes, you spot a sliver of red. Cassandra’s face goes from surprised to stormy.

“Sera, this is an official investigation,” she says.

“‘Course it is.” The elf hops down from her perch and steps into the firelight, a shrug shifting her slim shoulders. “It’s also a damn good story, yeah? Stealing from noble pricks, fighting off armies, seducing people’s wives,” she chuckles. “Wish _I_ could be part of it.”

“Apparently, you were,” says Leliana, and she crosses her arms. The glare she levels at Sera goes right through her, for all the effect it has.

“Guess I was!” She grins at the redhead. “And you looked so surprised! Don’t you remember? You asked me along, said you could use someone who knew the city, I went into your tent and stole your--”

“ _Yes_.” Leliana closes her eyes in an attempt to quell her annoyance. “I remember.”

“Good. Oh, speakin’ of remembering,” Sera looks at Cassandra. “One of the mages got drunk upstairs and hexed Giselle so all she does is hiccup. We can’t find Vivienne and Solas has his head stuck up his arse, so Cullen’s trying to fix it. But he’s shite without his lyrium, so he said to come find you.”

“ _What?_ ” Leliana looks absolutely appalled, and you can’t help but smirk. “How long has this been going on?”

“I got down here ‘bout an hour ago, so probably thereabouts.”

Cassandra makes a disgusted noise, and you can’t tell if she looks more angry or exhausted. “I warned the Inquisitor about inviting the mages tonight,” she growls, and even as she speaks she’s making her way towards the stairs. Leliana turns to follow her, presumably to do her best to console the singultous mother and, in their absence, Sera strolls along the table to where you sit. She plops her ass on its edge just in front of you and looks at you expectantly

“Well, don’t stop there, yeah?” She says. “Go on!”

You’ve almost forgotten the Antivan woman when she sits forward. “Perhaps it would be better to wait until Lady Cassandra and Leliana return--”

“Oh come _oooon_ , Josie!” Sera drones, leaning back to look at her. Josie, then. You file that away for later. “You’ve got the ink and paper, just write it down and they can read it later!” 

* * *

“Don’t worry, she loves this spot. Said so in one of her messages sent back to the castle.” Sera’s hands tapped out a beat on the table. The bar around you was dark, populated by a number of masked faces tucked away in private little nooks and tables. Your drink - shaken, rather than stirred - was pleasantly dry with an edge of spice, your ass was swaddled in one of the softest cushions it had ever graced, and there was an alluring perfume in the air; for all its pretension, you thought you could get used to this place. “So you just sit here, she’ll come in, and done. Easy.”

“Has anyone ever told you how impressive you are?” You asked, and Sera grinned back.

“Oh, this is nothing,” she said. “Pull this off, and I’ll show you just how _impressive_ I can be.”

She disappeared after that, left to her own devices until the rendezvous later. You sat and drank and, true to Sera’s word, soon spotted Leliana slipping in. She’d foregone the chainmail and purple cowl you’d seen her in earlier that day, and looked so much softer for their absence. For a moment the Nightingale was lost in your memory of a younger, more carefree Chantry sister - but then, that was likely the exact reaction Leliana had intended. The woman you’d met in the Viscount’s Keep, and again at Chateau Haine, did nothing without calculated purpose. This may have been one of her favorite watering holes in the city, but she was here for more than a drink.

You thought of Corff, and how much information he’d been able to glean just from tending the Hangman. How much more could be learned at a fancy drinking spot in Orlais?

You watched as she made a discrete sweep of the bar, and so knew the moment that she saw you. There was a subtle change in her expression, and had you not been so intent on watching her you might not have seen it; as it was, you raised your glass in response and smirked.

“Why, Isabela,” she greeted. She’d ordered a drink after you’d broken eye contact, and once she had it in her hand she made a beeline straight for you. “There are many people I would have thought I’d run into here, but you are not one of them.”

“I’m nothing if not surprising,” you said, and patted the cushion next to you. “Join me for a bit?”

She did, and conversation flowed easy as wine between you. She spoke freely of the Inquisition - though only, you would later realize, about things that were already public knowledge - and you charmed her with stories of your many adventures. You shared a laugh at Sebastian’s expense and a wistful sigh for Tallis; you teased her about her involvement with the Divine and she answered by reminding you of your run in at the Pearl in Denerim. As you drank you shifted, moving slightly closer to her and she to you with every fresh cup. By the end of it you were pressed against each other at hip and shoulder, your faces bent close, and you dragged the toe of your boot up the back of her calf. There has been resistance in her eyes all night, as though she knew exactly where your mind was taking the two of you and, though she was clearly interested, she knew she shouldn’t entertain the idea. In that moment, however, you watched that resistance disappear.

“What do you say we get out of here,” you whispered then, “For old times’ sake? It sounds like you could use a break.”

She bit her lower lip while looking at yours. “A Blight couldn’t stop us last time,” she said, her voice equally low as her eyes flicked up to yours. The way she looked at you from beneath her lashes raised goosebumps on your flesh. “Why should a rebellion stop us now?” 

* * *

“You know, for a view like this, I think I’d join the Inquisition too.”

Leliana’s rented rooms were in the lower levels of a building’s tower on the edge of the city’s canal. From her window you looked across the water and saw the center of the city spread out before you, the banners of the summer bazaar, the towering silhouette of the White Spire, the arching walls and delicate minarets of the Grand Cathedral, and in the distance, the rolling expanse of the Imperial Palace and its gardens. You opened the glass and rested your hands against the frame, breathing in the smells of the city that came in on the warm breeze. Behind you, Leliana finished stoking the fire.

“It is quite beautiful, isn’t it,” she agreed. You heard her feet - now bare - pad across the room, and in a moment you felt her at your shoulder. “There are few luxuries I afford myself these days, but there are some…” Her hands settled on your shoulders. “That are worth it.”

You allowed her to loosen the harness of the sheaths you wore, and shrugged out of it before turning to her. You were then caught in a kiss that was not unlike the woman who gave it, you thought; in its first moment it was soft, unassuming. But as you returned it, as your hands found her hips in turn, all the power that was hidden beneath its surface burst forth. She kissed you with ferocity and force, her fingers tangling into your hair and pressing against your scalp. When at last you needed air, you caught her wrists, pushed her against the wall beside the window, and pinned her wrists above her head. She looked at you, chest heaving, face red, lips pink, and blue eyes alive with hunger. You toyed with the stud in your lip as you soaked in the sight, and then gave her a wicked smirk.

“I hope you were talking about me just now,” you said, and dropped your voice to a sultry murmur as you leaned in to speak against her ear, “Because I will make this _beyond_ worth it.”

Every stitch of clothing was shed by the time you fell into her bed, and you were reminded of just how _fierce_ a lover Leliana could be. Even when she slowed down the otherwise frantic pace, when she returned the favor and pinned your own hands above your head as she ground into you, she radiated power - and you basked in it. It, and her pale skin, which you loved for the story it told as it warmed and pinkened with her blush, or darkened when you sucked a bruise into her collarbone.

Her hands slid down the inside of your arms when she finally released you, and continued down over your breasts and sides as she shifted down your body. She shortly thereafter proved that her long, slender fingers were good for more than just holding daggers, and her clever mouth was good for more than just songs - and she proved it several times over.

When at last you’d worn each other out, you feigned a doze while waiting for her to fall asleep. Her breathing gradually deepened and her body grew heavy, betraying her sleep; only then did you dare to slide out of bed and, on cat burglar's feet, begin to dress.

There were many places to search, and very little time.

It took nearly fifteen minutes and every _ounce_ of caution you possessed, but at last you found it. The document was old, the envelop it was folded into yellowed and dried with age, and was written in characters you had never seen before. It was illuminated in a style you would have guessed was Tevinter, but you didn’t get much time to look at it - for you hardly even had it in your hands when you heard movement behind you.

“I’d guessed you were up to something,” came Leliana’s voice, and you turned to see her wide awake and standing at the edge of her bed with a dagger in her hand. Even bare naked, with her ass and tits exposed to the moonlight streaming in, she looked far more intimidating than almost anyone you’d ever met. “I just couldn’t be certain what it was until I saw it for myself.”

“Well, you know what they say,” you said, carefully replacing the document in its envelope and tucking that, in turn, into your sash. “Once a thief, always a thief. Sorry, sweetness. It’s nothing personal.”

“No, I expect it isn’t,” she answered. You noticed the subtlest of twitches in her hand. “And I promise you, neither is this.”

She was a blur as she launched at you, and it was all you could do to get a dagger free fast enough to catch hers before it buried in your intestine. Shoving it away with all the weight of your body, you stepped aside and jumped back as she chased you with a sweeping arc. You eyed the window, but she pressed her attack before you could so much as twitch towards it.

“Who are you working for?” She demanded as your blades locked against hers. You shoved her back and aimed a punch at her face but she ducked, dropped low, and swept your knee out from under you. You collapsed onto it, and had to throw yourself forward to avoid the strike that followed. “Not even you would sink so far as to work with the Venatori.”

“Independent venture,” you said after rolling onto your feet. You remained low, your daggers held out and ready; she stood between you and your escape route now. For a moment you contemplated using the door immediately behind you, but then you thought of all the Inquisition guards stationed between you and the front entrance and decided against it. Leliana might have be dangerous, but you were a duelist. One on one was what you _did_.

“Liar,” she said, and stood waiting for you. She knew as well as you that your plan lay out the window behind her, and so she let you bring the attack to her.

“Sorry to disappoint,” you said, and leapt forward. She stepped aside, letting your airborne strike come down on nothing but air, and wove between the sweeping strikes that followed it. “But I’m actually telling the truth this time!”

“You must have a seller!” She caught one of your blades, ducked beneath the second, and managed to catch you in the side with an elbow. You sputtered, your balance thrown off, and she shoved you backwards. Just like that, you’re returned to square one. “Who wants it?”

You stood, several paces from her, and waited to collect your breath. You had heard that Leliana was dangerous, had known that she’d survived a fight with an Archdemon and operated without so much as a whisper as Divine Justinia’s knife in the darkness, but you’d never had the chance to fight her before. In that moment, you found yourself glad that she wasn’t yet trying to kill you.

“That,” you said with the last of your panting, “Is classified.”

You dropped a smoke bomb this time, and though Leliana found you faster than any opponent you could remember, it was still enough to get a slight leg up - and if all you were trying to do was get past her, that slight advantage was enough.

“First the Divine, now the Inquisitor,” you said, taunting even as you locked together in battle again. “Who will you fail next?”

You knew that with her constitution she would fall for nothing less than a strike at the jugular, so you took it - and it worked. She roared in response and, frenzied in her anger, unleashed a rapid set of attacks that you struggled to ward off. But you shortly found the opening you needed, the one you’d hoped for, and you slid past her to drive an elbow into her spine. As she stumbled forward you turned and kicked her to the ground, and just like that the way to the window was clear. You were there before she even managed to flip herself onto her back to look at you.

“Sorry again about this,” you paused to say, one foot on the window’s ledge. “For what it’s worth - I’ve really enjoyed tonight.” You tossed her a wink. “Let’s do it again some time.”

You reached into your sash, threw the object Sera gave you on the ground and, as it crashed open, you disappeared out the window. The stench of a stink bomb followed you as you dropped onto the roof of the building below and dashed across its peak to its opposite side. There, Sera was waiting for you.

“What the shite, Isabela?” She demanded as she stood. “It’s been hours! How long did it take you to - wait.” A devious grin pulled slowly onto her lips. “You didn’t actually - did you _diddle_ Lady Secret-Pants?? You _actually_ managed to--?!?”

“Time for that later, Sera,” you interrupted, catching her by the arm and tugging her towards the latticework you would climb to get to the lower level. You hadn’t exactly told the elf that you intended to take something from Leliana, and she expected only the sort of retaliation that would befit an Inquisitorial seneschal who had just found her chambers covered in sulfur and other unpleasant-smelling things. You, however, had no intention of finding out the sort of retaliation that would come from a spymaster who had been robbed. “Leliana was a little less thrilled about your prank than we’d anticipated. We need to _go_.”

“Maker’s arse, I wish I’d seen her face!”

You made it to street level without incident, Sera giggling like a madwoman the entire way, but your luck didn’t hold much beyond that. As you reached the end of the street a shout went out, and you turned to see an Inquisition soldier alerting the others behind her to your presence. You swore, Sera began to guffaw again, and the two of you skidded down a side alley.

You wove through the streets and around buildings, and though Leliana’s agents were fast you had Sera to lead the way.

“Quick! Over here,” she said, grabbing your arm and tugging you around a corner. “We’ve nearly lost--”

Rounding the corner, you found yourselves faced with a group of heavily armed figures, each of them dressed in crimson Tevinter-style robes. That you had no idea who they were wasn’t going to help you, it seemed, for upon spotting you they immediately drew their weapons. Sera froze.

“Shite,” she breathed, and reached for her bow. “Venatori.”

“Vena-what now?” You repeated. Leliana had said the word before but you’d paid it no mind; now it suddenly had a dangerous amount of meaning behind it.

“Step aside, elf,” one of them sneered. “It’s her we want.” You groaned.

“Why is it always _me?_ ”

The fight that followed could have gone smoother. You were accustomed to fighting with lightly armored allies - you and Hawke were just as dangerous alone as you were with Aveline - but rarely was that ally an archer. For a moment you feared having to be the bulwark that held the melee-armed opponents off her, but it turned out Sera could hold her own. From any dozen hidden pockets she pulled a number of flasks - one that she smashed as a hammer came at her, and coated her in something that looked like ice. When the hammer hit her it did nothing. It just stuck in the ice, which in turn began to creep up the haft of the weapon and up the robed figure’s hands. Sera simply took an arrow from her quiver and jabbed it up under his helmet, and went back to firing.

You were standing closer to her when she smashed the second one, and as lightning lanced up her limbs you felt it on your back, too. You moved with more speed than you had ever been capable of before, flying across the battlefield like you were made of air. It was one of the most amazing feelings you’d ever had, better than being high - and the sight of Sera, flipping backward and launching three simultaneous arrows at her opponents, immediately drawing more so quickly that the arrows seemed to appear on her bow, was one of the most impressive sights you’d ever seen. You were only brought back to reality by the sound of a distant shout.

“They caught up,” Sera said, appearing at your side after disappearing in a puff of smoke. “I can hold off these cock-squabbles ‘til they get here. You run!”

“ _Incredible_ , Sera,” you repeated, and pressed a kiss to her cheek. As you turned tail, you heard her laughing behind you. 

* * *

“It was a childish prank, Cassandra! There is no lasting damage, and no need to--”

Leliana’s voice drops off as she reaches the bottom of the stairs, and catches sight of you, Josie, and Sera looking at her. Her eyes narrow suspiciously when they settle on yours, and then move to Josie’s.

“What has she been telling you?”

Josie’s lips tug up into a beautifully shiteating grin. “You went to _Le Vie en Rose_ ,” she says, “And you found her there.”

You relish the way Leliana’s face turns pink, and her eyes dart to you. “That was unnecessary,” she says, and she tries so hard to maintain normalcy in her voice. She really does. But that blush betrays her.

“I was helping!” You protest. “I didn’t want to let you two get _too_ far behind in your investigation. So I added a little...filler.”

“She added filler, alright,” Sera chortles, kicking her feet delightedly. “Filled her with two, even three fingers!”

Cassandra looks between the three of you, the very picture of befuddlement. “What is happening?”

“Nothing.” Leliana ducks her head to hide her expression in her cowl. Josie is positively _beaming_ with her amusement. “Perhaps we should return to the task at hand. You got your hands on the document, and then what?”

“Wait,” Cassandra frowns, and strides to resume her place on the opposite side of the table. “How did she get the document?”

“She caught it in a honeypot!” Sera crows, and Leliana looks up with murder in her eyes.

“Sera.”

“I mean, I’m still mad at you for lying to me, Isabela, but this was so _worth_ it--”

“ _Sera_.”

“Just wait ‘til Blackwall gets a load of--”

“ _Sera!_ ” Leliana thunders, and it’s enough to chase all amusement from the elf’s face. “Get. Out. _Now_.”

“Alright, alright, sheesh.” She hops off the table and gives you a sly wink. “Thanks for the laugh, yeah? Swordfights and screamers and all that. I’m glad for that last part in particular. I’ll have to lock it away for... _later_.”

She pats you on the shoulder and disappears down the hall you’d been brought in through. Once she’s gone the last of the frivolity ekes out of the room, chased out by the storm Leliana is radiating. Josie sobers, and settles back to her writing board.

“The document is stolen from Inquisition forces in Val Royeaux.” The spymaster turns her eyes on you. “What happens then?”

“I nearly got away with it to Crestwood,” you quip, turning to look at Cassandra, “Except for a meddling Seeker.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was right around here that I realized I should have been writing the past events in italics. Too bad I'm lazy.
> 
> I also discovered in this chapter that I have almost no idea how to write Sera. I've never attempted to include her in a fic before, and though I've made it part way through a game romancing her, I didn't get quite as good a feel for her as I have with other characters. I'm still not entirely happy with the way it turned out, but it's passable. And I'm on a time table.
> 
> Next up: my one and only lady paladin.


	4. Cassandra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part Three.

With the Inquisition crawling over every inch of Lake Calenhad, Highever is the closest port you could find. So there you docked, and there you were mired as you worked to make arrangements for a horse and supplies to get you to Crestwood. No one you knew had yet managed to get into contact with Hawke, but some leads from Varric suggested that wherever she was and whatever she was doing, she was likely working with a man called Stroud. So it was that you decided to leave _Siren’s Call II_ docked for a few weeks and venture south. 

At least, that had been the plan. It seemed that the Inquisition had somehow managed to figure out where you were headed though, and there was a small contingency of them already in Highever when you arrived. That contingency, led by none other than Seeker Pentaghast, had put out a reward for information on anyone looking to hire travel to Crestwood. And that made asking questions rather….difficult. The necessity of discretion slowed you down considerably.

The first time you saw Cassandra, she was passing through the market. You recognized her from the description in Varric’s letter - _“Oh, you’d love her. Strong jaw, even stronger hands. She’s straight out of one of your fictions.”_ \- and watched her from the door of a tavern as she spoke to a Chantry sister. You shouldn’t have liked her, you know, given the way she’d treated Varric, but...well, he wasn’t wrong. She struck such a figure in her armor, straight-backed and powerful, with cheekbones so sharp they could cut glass and a scar on her jaw that you could spend _days_ occupying yourself with. Rather than wanting to punch her in the face, you found yourself wishing she wasn’t wearing gauntlets so you could see her hands. Sovereigns to sunflowers they would be deliciously calloused and scarred, just a little on that side of rough, and every bit as impressive as the rest of her…

You took a swig from the tankard in your hand and turned back inside. It wouldn’t do to let yourself get caught up in such thoughts - because when you did that, you wouldn’t stop until you’d at least _tried_ to get what you wanted. And doing that, at this stage of the game, would be dangerous. You needed to steer clear of the Seeker, if you knew what was good for you.

It’s really too bad that you never do.

* * *

“I don’t know. She sent me that letter, and then she just sort of…” Merrill shrugged her slim shoulders, looking sadly down at her fingers as she tangled and re-tangled them together. “Disappeared again." 

The elf had been in the area, it turned out, conducting research of her own in the ruins of the Circle Tower on the edge of Lake Calenhad. You had now been stuck in Highever long enough to contact her, for her to travel here, and now for you to stroll together through the streets in the pleasant afternoon heat. You wrapped an arm around her shoulders and gave her a comforting little squeeze.

“It’s alright, kitten,” you said softly. “You know that if she needed your help, she would ask for it in a heartbeat.”

“I know. I just...I worry.” She looked up at you. “Do you think she’s safe?”

You snort. “Kitten. This is _Hawke_ we’re talking about. Do you really think there’s anything out there scarier than her?”

That brought a little smile to Merrill’s face. “No, I suppose not.” She was quiet for a moment, admiring the flowers growing along the edge of the Chantry’s courtyard as you passed. “Anyway. I wish I could help you, but I do most of my traveling on foot these days. I could ask around the Alienage, if you’d like, but the people there don’t often have livestock of their own.”

“Oh don’t worry your pretty head about it,” you said gently. “I’ll find a way.”

In the silence that followed the ring of steel on steel reached your ears, and you frown. It wasn’t often that the sounds of combat echoed across the Chantry courtyard, and as you turned the corner you half expected to see rebel mages having it out with the Templars that usually guard its doors. What you saw instead had you stopping to watch.

Cassandra was training in the yard, a number of armored Inquisition recruits standing nearby to observe. As you watched she caught her opponent’s blade on her shield and with a mighty _shove_ pushed him back, upsetting his balance. She followed up then with a sweeping strike, and the recruit was lucky that it was a blunted training blade she was using - otherwise, the force of it might have cut clean through the man’s armor and into his midsection. You found yourself halfway to transfixed by the motion, by the lines of her body, by the strength and control in her movement. For a moment you even forgot that Merrill was standing next to you.

“She’s quite good, isn’t she?” She chirped as Cassandra and her opponent reset and began again. “Almost as good as Aveline.”

An idea was slowly forming as you watched her, and you played with the stud in your lower lip. “No,” you said slowly. “I think she’s better.”

* * *

If you were being honest with yourself, you’d admit that this plan was almost entirely motivated by the desire to be in the same room as the Seeker. But you were rarely honest with yourself, and so you were convinced that there was a good chance that if you could just _speak_ to her - if you could get close to her, if you could charm her, if you could, maybe, touch that incredibly strong jawline just _once_ \- you would be able to persuade her to call this whole thing off. Or, at the very least, trick her into letting you get a horse and then riding off to find Stroud before she could realize she’d been had. Either way, really. 

So it was that you found yourself climbing in through the window of Cassandra’s rented rooms. You’d been watching, waiting for her to step out so you could slip in unnoticed; now you leaned against the windowsill, a naked dagger in your hand, and waited for her to return.

She was wearing nothing but a thin linen shirt and trousers when she did reappear, and the former stuck in some places - her shoulders, her collarbone, her elbows and breasts - to the damp skin beneath. She didn’t see you at first, because she was busily running a towel through her hair.

She was just out of the bath, then. You had to bite your lip to fight back a groan.

When she did look up, she froze. Her hand closed tightly around the end of her towel as though it were a sword, and she watched you warily. You merely smirked.

“Seeker Pentaghast,” you hummed. “I hear you’ve been looking for me.”

Some kind of comprehension dawned in her eyes, but her expression remained dangerous. It made you tingle. “You’re the one that took the document about Corypheus?”

Corypheus? The name didn’t ring a bell, but you nodded anyway. “I am.”

“Then give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call the guards and arrest you right now.”

“Well, for starters,” you began, “I don’t have the document on me. What’s more, I don’t intend to go without a fight.” You stuck the tip of your dagger into the windowsill with a _thunk_. “So if you hope to find the document again, calling the guards is probably not the best strategy.”

Cassandra flexed her jaw. It was undoubtedly a sign of annoyance, but Andraste’s _arse_ did you want to see her do it again. “What strategy would you suggest, then?”

You smirked. “I’m glad you asked.”

Reaching into your cleavage, you withdrew a small scrap of paper. You set the scrap on the small table that sits at your hip, and rested your finger on top.

“Meet me at this location tomorrow night, just after sunset. Come alone, and maybe we can work something out.”

* * *

You saw her enter before she saw you. 

You’d been sitting in the rafters of this old warehouse for most of the day, watching through its high windows to ensure that the Inquisition wasn’t up to anything fishy. By the time Cassandra arrived, dressed in her oh-so-dashing Seekers regalia, you hadn’t seen anything but rats moving all day.

“You came alone,” you said from your perch. She looked up. If she was at all surprised to see you there, she didn’t show it.

“I did.” Her eyes followed you as you dropped to the ground. “Did you?”

“I did.” You stepped closer to her, a slow swagger in your hips. “You have me all to yourself, Seeker. The question is, what will you do with me?"

She appeared to straighten somewhat as you approached, held her head higher. “That depends on what you want of me.”

“Mm, be careful saying things like that, sweetness,” you said, stopping one step from her. You weren’t exaggerating when you finished, “You’ll give a girl ideas.”

Cassandra made a disgusted noise that made your heart stutter. “I want the document.”

 _And I want you_ , you thought, but you didn’t say as much. “And I want a horse,” you said instead, “And safe passage to Crestwood.”

“You are a wanted for crimes against the Inquisition,” she said in turn. “I cannot just let you go free.”

“No?” It had been worth a shot. “Then how about this. I propose a duel.”

Cassandra arched a godly eyebrow. “A duel?”

“A duel. If I win, I get a horse and safe passage, and you get the document.” Which you would refuse to hand over until you had the horse, at which point you would promptly knock her out and ride off into the sunset. Cassandra’s eyebrow stayed raised.

“And if I win?”

You shrugged, stepping nonchalantly into Cassandra’s space. “You’ll have bested me, so you’ll likely have me pinned. Quivering. _Submissive_.” When _you_ arched your eyebrow it was a suggestion, not a skepticism. “You’ll be able to do what you want with me.”

Another scoff, but Cassandra couldn’t quite seem to look at you.

“What’s wrong, Seeker?” You asked. “Don’t think you can beat me?”

She looked down at you - she was a good few inches taller - for several moments, considering. Then she sighed. “Very well. A duel, then.”

You smirked and stepped back. With little more than that you drew your daggers, spun them to loosen your wrists, and widened your stance. Across from you, Cassandra did the same. “This should be fun.”

Cassandra rolled her shoulders as she hefted her sword and her shield. “First to be disarmed, then?”

“Sounds like as good a plan as any,” you answered. “Ready?”

In lieu of a response, Cassandra led the charge. She was faster than you gave her credit for, and you thought she must have been holding back when sparring against that recruit. You know better, then, than to try and catch her blade outright. Instead you let it skid off yours, redirecting her momentum to the side. You stepped back as she began to recover her balance, and used the space to strike at her outstretched arm. Her shield was there before you, of course, and your daggers skidded uselessly off its surface. She’d recovered her balance then, and brought her sword around to strike a series of blows in your direction, with each becoming progressively more difficult for your smaller blades to ward off. For fear of being overwhelmed you took another step back and, when she brought her shield up to bear, chose to forgo an attack in favor of jumping up, setting your foot on her shield, and kicking off into a backflip. In a puff of smoke, you disappeared.

You watched her search the darkening warehouse floor for you, her breathing carefully measured so she could listen for your footfall. A normal dagger-wielding fighter might have found themselves hopelessly outmatched against Cassandra; she was every bit as strong and fierce as you’d hoped. But you had more than just the average dagger techniques at your disposal, and you had never had any intention of fighting fairly. You watched in silence as she circled, and only when her back was to you did you make your move.

Sheathing your daggers, you stepped up behind her. In a single motion you pressed yourself to her back, set your hands on her hips, and stood on your toes to speak in her ear. “I am _most_ impressed, Cassandra.”

You were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of her ears turning red just before she spun around, swinging her sword out wildly in the hopes of catching you. You were long gone, though, having rolled back the moment you felt the twitch of movement in her hips. She pressed her attack immediately after, but you were already on your feet with both daggers drawn.

“Such fury,” you teased. You were ready for her attacks this time, and deflecting them became little more than a dance. “I like it.”

“Shut up.”

“Oooh.” You remained on the defensive, watching and waiting for her to fall into the lull of her attacks to push her sword arm aside, to slide sideways behind her shield and--

Cassandra froze _immediately_. You had moved so quickly that her effort to put her shield between your body and hers had in fact hemmed you in. It was highly unlikely that any of her opponents had ever tried something quite like this, and it was obvious she had little idea of how to react.

“If I didn’t know any better,” you breathed, the very _tip_ of your dagger dragging slowly up the length of her neck. “I’d say I made you flustered.”

You watched her adam’s apple bounce in response, and couldn’t help your wicked smirk. Switching both daggers into one hand, you used the other to trail up her side. “Perhaps I have,” you went on, and as your hand reached her collarbone you felt a tremor move through her, saw her jaw lock in something that looked like anticipation. You leaned in, brushing your nose along that glorious jawline as you continued in a whisper. “Tell me, Seeker,” you breathed, your lips ghosting against her throat with every word. You could feel her pulse, rapid and alive, just beneath her skin. Your hand, moving along her collarbone to her shoulder, slid slowly down her arm and pulled it back in towards her body. All you needed to do was get your hands on the sword, just make her drop it… “Have you ever wondered what a woman felt like?”

* * *

“I do not understand how you are listening to this drivel.”

Cassandra sits at the table now, her arms crossed, eyebrows pulled together, and glare burning a hole through the wood in front of her. She is also blushing, just a little, and you don’t think it has anything to do with the heat of the candles around her.

This is not the first time she has attempted to interrupt you. It seemed that every moment you took a break to describe some feature of her made her scoff, made her offer some irritated comment. But unlike previous occasions, Leliana - perhaps in need of some reparations for her part of the story - has ignored her every time. Seeing as you have little difficulty ignoring Cassandra’s irritation on most occasions, you have certainly ignored it now.

The difference of this instance occurs when Cassandra’s complaint is followed shortly thereafter by the appearance of a soldier at the foot of the far stairwell.

“Lady Seeker, Lady Seneschal,” he says, putting his fist against his heart in a salute. “Forgive my interruption, but something has happened. Master Varric has requested your presence upstairs immediately.”

Leliana and Cassandra exchange looks, and for the second time that evening disappear up the stairs with the guard in tow. Leaving just you and Josie alone in the room.

The latter is intent on avoiding your eyes. She’s been hanging on your every word for most of the night, scratching down the details of your story, blushing at its more sordid details, and stifling her laughter behind a handkerchief when your wit was simply too much to handle. Now she hides behind the appearance of work, her quill continuing to move against the paper on her writing board even though your testimony has stopped. But you watch. Who could blame you, really? Josie is a lovely woman. And as you watch, you catch her making furtive glances in your direction. Every so often she looks up without moving her head, so that her hazel eyes fall on you from beneath a thick fringe of dark lashes. After the third time this happens, you break the silence.

“You know, sweet thing,” you drawl. You lay your arm on the edge of the table again, stretching your knife- and rope-worn fingers out against the aged wood. You watch your fingers as you do, and then tip your head to the side to look at her again. “I don’t believe I caught your name.”

“Josephine Montilyet, of the Antivan Montilyets,” she says, and you’re almost persuaded by the hum in her voice that this is not a practiced, almost instinctual response. “I serve as the Inquisition’s ambassador to foreign powers.”

“Ambassador?” You arch an eyebrow. “And they have you down here, taking notes like a lowly scribe?”

She looks at you a moment, gorgeous eyes swimming in candlelight. She seems to make a decision then, and and stands. “Actually…” she says slowly, coming around to your side of the table. You watch as she rests a hand on its edge, lets her fingers drag along as she steps closer to you. “I...requested. To be present.”

Your arched eyebrow takes on a slightly different tone as you smirk. “Is that so?”

“I had come across your name previously - both in the _Tales of the Champion_ , and in many of the Inquisition’s briefings. I believe I read it in a few of the reports made by the captains of my family’s ships, explaining why our goods never reached their destination. Ships flying the Antivan flag, perhaps with gambling captains.”

“I sincerely hope not,” you say, your eyes traveling up the gold-shimmering line of her arm once she stops moving. You find her gaze instead, and finish, “I couldn’t live with myself if I’d known I’d stolen from so lovely a woman.”

She smiles, blinks rapidly, tucks her chin a little and averts her eyes for just a moment; she’s pleased, and you are more charmed than ever. “You flatter me, Captain.”

“ _Admiral._ ”

“Of course. Forgive me.”

In the silence her eyes return to yours, and she draws the tips of her fingers along the table’s edge in a nondescript, vaguely circular pattern. Then, she moves the writing board she has been balancing against her hip and sets it down on the table instead. Leaning back against the latter, she curls the fingers of both hands over its edge and asks, “What ever _did_ you do with the missing document?”

You shrug nonchalantly. “Cassandra lied. She hadn't come alone. Eventually she called the guards, and I fled to a rendezvous point. I handed it off to Merrill who brought it to Stroud, and I returned to the _Siren’s Call II_ and went on my merry way. For the three weeks it took for your people to catch up, anyway.”

“You had a contingency plan, then.”

“A good pirate always does.”

Her eyes shine with something like admiration as she looks at you. Then she looks down, brushes some invisible speck from the front of her skirts, and says, “So...did you _truly_ manage to seduce Lady Pentaghast?”

You smirk at that. “Would you believe me if I said I did?”

She gives a little chuckle of amusement and you stand. “I suppose I wouldn’t.”

“Then _I_ suppose…” You swagger across the few steps remaining between you and position yourself immediately in front of her. “That I have no choice but to prove it to you.”

She raises an eyebrow in response. “And how will you do that, Admiral?”

You like the way the title rolls from her tongue, and you find yourself toying with the stud in your lip. You take her question as permission, and begin: “You see...Seeker Pentaghast is so very powerful.” As you speak your hands slide onto her hips, and you watch the dips they make against her blue silks. From the corner of your eye, you see her fingers tense against the table’s edge. “Coming on strong and hard would have no effect on her; such advances would simply bounce right off.

“A little bit of softness, though…” You step in closer, one foot between both of hers, and you are so close that you can hear her breath tremble out of her as your hands begin an _achingly_ slow journey up her sides. “A little bit of softness will catch her off guard.” This you say with your lips near her ear, and her ribs expand beneath your fingers as she sucks in a breath. You watch her mouth, her inviting, soft, warm-looking mouth pop open with the gasp, and you bite your lower lip to ward off the ache that responds. Rather than kiss her there and then, you tip your head further still, and brush your nose along her jaw. “And slip _right_ under her armor.”

You aren’t sure if it’s the feeling of your breath on her neck or the fact that your nose brushes her pulse, but either way Josephine’s hands _fly_ to your waist. A chuckle rumbles low in your throat, and you lift one hand to the side of her neck. Pressing your thumb against her jaw you tip her head back and continue to speak, every syllable bringing your lips to ghost against her skin. “With the right touch…” you say, your hand moving to drag the tip of your finger down the center of her throat. As you do, her hands search up the front of your corset. “I can get _anyone_ to melt in my hands.”

“Is that so?” She asks, her voice low and breathy. Her fingers have worked beneath the top of your corset, and you feel them tugging on it. You run your tongue over your lip.

“Would you like to find out, my lady?”

Her hands pull back, and you feel something come away with them. You blink, pulling away...and Josephine stands with a victorious little smirk on her lips. In her hand she holds none other than the aged envelope of the missing document.

“Many Orlesian women use hidden pockets in their corsets,” she says, and you take a few stunned steps back. “It turns out they’re good for more than just hiding lockpicks.”

You blink at her, gaping like a fish out of water. “I -- but how did you--?”

“Every time someone mentioned the document, you touched your corset,” she says, stepping away from the table. By the time you even remotely recover yourself, she’s standing at the foot of the stairs. “Ser Ewan! Please deliver this to the Seneschal - for her eyes only.” After delivering the envelope into the hand of the soldier who answered, she clasps her hands and turns to you with that same, deviously triumphant smile on her lips. “I would suggest learning to better hide your tells before you play cards again, Admiral.”

  
You can do nothing but gape at her as she takes a few steps closer. “Oh - and one more thing,” she says, holding up a finger. That finger tips your chin up as her voice drops, and she says, “Do _not_ steal from my family again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Isabela has a thing for the sword-bearing straight ladies of this game. I'll leave it to you to decide just how much of that she gets from me.
> 
> Anyway, there we have it. Two pairings from the chosen prompt, a third from one of the others (and one of my own, because who can resist including Josephine? Certainly not me), and dropped in a little Sera, as requested. I'd considered cutting Merrill's bit after deciding to tell, rather than show, the flight from Highever, but...I like her. And I have not ceased to be lazy. 
> 
> This has really been quite a lot of fun to write, and I hope it's been just as fun to read.
> 
> Stay tuned for the coda!


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We end with a greeting.

First Cassandra calls the guards on you, and now Josephine robs you blind. As far as rejections go, you think you prefer the ‘ _get away from me, you pirate hag!’_ s better. At least then you can walk away with some semblance of dignity remaining. This? This is just embarrassing.

You are left sitting for nearly twenty minutes after Josephine leaves, only the soldiers standing guard in the stairwells keeping you company. There is plenty of old junk stored in the room and you occupy yourself with snooping through it: lift the lid on that chest, pry the top off that box, tip the top of that ewer. You’re thrilled to find a liquor bottle amidst the rubbish, but your excitement deflates just as quickly as it exploded when you realize that it’s bone dry. With a grumble you toss it back in the box you found it in and turn away.

There are footsteps on the stairs, and you lean back against the box to wait for the owner to appear. Cassandra’s heavy boots are the first thing you see, but they’re followed quickly by the rest of her - and a scowl the thunderous likes of which you’ve never seen sits on her face. For as much as she has become a thorn in your side, there is still something that responds in you at that look. What you wouldn’t _give_ to see it above you as she--

“Come with me,” she orders, and you arch an eyebrow. “Your presence is required upstairs.”

You get your first glimpse of Skyhold as she leads you upstairs. There’s a party of some kind going on in the main hall, and you realize it must be Wintersend. She speeds you past its doors with nary a second glance. The fortress itself is a bit of a dump - you caught sight of a still-broken window in the hall, and it seems as though every other surface is draped with tarp - but you still feel a twinge of regret at being denied the party. You spent the better part of a decade drinking in the Hanged Man, after all; you are hardly one to deny a party based on its _appearances_.

Still, the choice is not yours to make. You are led outside into the cool mountain air, down the front steps, across the courtyard, and into a tower. At the bottom of the stairs, Cassandra stops and turns to you.

“She’s waiting for you on the next level,” she says, still looking every inch as irritated as when she first reappeared. “First door on the landing.”

With little more than that she turns on her heel and leaves, slamming the door behind her. You blink after her for a moment, left utterly bewildered in the wake of her departure. But ultimately you recover yourself, turn, and climb the stairs to the indicated door. It’s been left ajar, and you can see a glimmer of firelight on the other side. You carefully nudge it open and peer inside.

Her hair has grown longer, and is a little on this side of shaggy; her bright blue eyes are sunken under dark circles, but they are alive as ever in the light of the candle. Her tan has faded, making the stripe of red across her nose stand out all the harsher against her pale skin, but she is still the woman you know. The woman you _love_.

Hawke stands from where she’d been sitting on the edge of the bed, and turns to offer you a smile. For a moment you can do nothing but stare.

“It’s been six months,” she says finally, a playful scold, “And I can’t even get a ‘hello’?”

“Oh, you’ll get more than that.” Her words have brought you to life, and you surge across the room to press a kiss against her mouth, your arms looping over her shoulders. She laughs against you, her arms taking your weight as she spins you and kisses you back. When at last you’re on your feet again, she pulls back just enough to say, “I’ve missed you.”

“And whose fault is that?” You chuckle, your hand now pressed to her cheek. She grins at you.

“Yours, clearly,” she says, “You didn’t write me _once_. I want to know what adventures you’ve been up to!”

“I didn’t write…” You step back from her, pacing back towards the door. “Because it’s a much better story to _tell_.”

  
And with that, you close the door on the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy spring, everyone!


End file.
